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A few years ago

Pronounciation

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Edited by David McColl, Friday, 6 Apr 2012, 17:04

Since my tutor mentioned my poor pronunciation I have been looking into sources of help and assistance. Clearly the tutorials are the main OU resources, but they are so badly attended and I find Elluminate difficult. I have been investigating other options.

One source is the IPA, those funny little letters in the dictionary that most people ignore. These are two easily similar words :

schön [ʃø:n] Adj. - beautiful
schon [ʃo:n] Adv. - already.

Another route is to find where these words are spoken, digitally on the web. The DWDS (deh vey deh es) site often has a button that speaks the word being looked up, but that is difficult to download being Flash based. It can be recorded via Audacity and then downloaded but what a fuss.

One site specialising in pronounciation is www.forvo.com . You can register and download an MP3 file recorded by native speakers. They even show you a map of where the speaker comes from. The site is prone to being down sadly, but when it works it really works.

I use a combination of these two adding them to my ANKI flashcards. DWDS uses the article which Forvo does not.

Dave

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A few years ago

Anki

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Edited by David McColl, Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011, 17:47

Anki is a flashcard system that I have downloaded and am using to help me learn German vocabulary and phrases. I use it every day or as often as possible consistent with my learning philosophy: little and often.

Anki suits me better than a web based system as I think I have more control, no internet based interruptions for example. I have downloaded a deck for L193, Rundblick 2 and am editting this as I go along. In addition, I have started decks for each Thema, which may allow me to focus my learning and later on my revision. I also have an overall deck and one for the naughty Deutsch für den Ausländer.

My methodology is to use Langenscheidt's Basic German Vocabulary to add the part of speech and to add a simple phrase in which the word is used. I recommend the vocabulary book in any case, it has the standard Langenscheidt look and feel, complete with the hard protective plastic cover.

For example, from my Thema 2 set I have the word schade, tagged as an Adverb. On one side of the flashcard is schade and on the other side is the meaning: too bad, it's a pity followed by a phrase using schade: Es ist schade, dass du keine Zeit hast. - It's too bad (that) you don't have time.

Auf Wiedersehn. [107]

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